You raise the issue Hyperboreus of description versus prescription.

I have no doubt that some of the ideas and views of language which have been developed by linguists from their studies of natural languages have relevance to Esperanto.

But Esperanto is different. Principles matter.

In Esperanto, which is a language for adults (mainly educated ones), and which is not normally in daily usage, there is a quite different balance between meaning of words as determined by established usage and meaning which is derived or generated.

In Esperanto, now and for a long time yet, you can't just look up a word in the dictionary and always find it defined.

In fact NPIV only gives the meaning of a place for keeping or leaving clothes for 'vestejo', though clearly many would considered vestry or robing-room to be a legitimate meaning.

Theoretical considerations of word-formation are important, as the possibilities for word generation in Esperanto are so unlimited.

However, the accounts which you can read in the Aktoj of the Akademio, or in PAG, or in Kalocsay's or Cherpillod's books are much too complicated.

They also have to resort to the changing of the root class within certain compounds, which makes you wonder to what extent root class is really an attribute of the root, and why it was thought necessary in the first place.

But the real sin of the grammarians would be not just lack of correspondence with the principles actually employed by Esperantists in the interpretion of compound words, but the tendency to stifling prescription.

Where there was unreflective comfort, yet effective communication, they raise doubt.

Start a debate on what 'brosejo' and 'martelejo' can mean, or refer back to the discussion that arose about mi rimarkis lian ne-mastron de la akuzativo, and I think you will see how insidious the grammatical root class idea has become.

It took 80 years (from 1887) for the Akademio to come down off the fence. Why? If the theory is clearly right.

Forigite

Hyperboreus:Has this been a design principle of Esperanto, i.e. has Esperanto been created with the intention of addressing mostly educated adults

It was implied in the introduction of Unua Libro that Esperanto was meant for the well-educated.

My point is: You cannot enforce convention. You cannot prescribe a language.

Surely this is only true of natural languages.

The history of Esperanto is a practical demonstration that you can create a language through prescription.

My objection is not to prescription per se but to BAD prescription - through a false theory of how the language functions that imposes unnecessary limitation on what counts as being well-formed.

As regards the point about Esperanto being, by design, for adult learners, this is the case.

Zamenhof recognized the difficuties that natural languages bring with them for adult learners and saw that the only solution for a workable lingua franca was an artificial one.

It would have been totally impracticable to get Esperanto launched, if that required children to start learning it, as they pick up their mother tongue.

So the only acceptable solution would be a language that could easily be acquired by adult learners. Almost all the essential features of Esperanto can be explained by this requirement.

Even after la fina venko, it will still be the case that Esperanto would be learned by adults, as and when they have a need for international communication.

The problems we have in Esperanto with parsing complex signs, interpreting them and then actualising them as a reference to a specific thing (or idea or action, you name it), are present in our natural languages, too

I'll not deny this.

The point is that in Esperanto the balance between usage-established meaning and derived or generated meaning (through certain principles) is quite different.

On your point about words of English not present in English dictionaries, but readily understood by native speakers, I agree that there will be some.

BUT English dictionaries are very comprehensive in a way that Esperanto dictionaries would never be - in principle, because of nature of the word-building system in Esperanto, and also in practice because of the corpus of usage that the dictionary can draw upon.

Forigite

sudanglo:Does vestejo mean:

1. cloakroom, garderobe (loko kie oni lasas sian mantelon)

2. vestry, robing-room (loko kie oni surmetas veston)

When answering, please indicate whether you are a linguist or an Esperantist.

Well, I did PhD work in Linguistics and have studied Esperanto since the 1980s if that counts for anything

The PIV2005 gives

"Loko, kie oni konservas aŭ lasas vestojn : ŝia vestejo estas plenplena; lasu la ĉapelon en la vestejo de la teatro."

The Plena Vortaro de Espearanto kun Suplemento gives the same.

I suppose you could avoid ambiguity by using "vestiĝejo" to mean "loko kie oni surmetas veston".

Note also that "provbudo" is used more specifically for a room in stores where you try on clothes before buying them.

That said, Zamenhof himself used "vestejo" in the Fundamenta Krestomatio in the sense of "loko kie oni surmetas veston" : in his retelling of La Novaj Vestoj de la Reĝo (from Anderson), he says "la reĝo estas en la vestejo"

So I think it could be safely used in either sense. I have both definintions (cloakroom and dressing room) for "vestejo" in ESPDIC.

http://www.denisowski.org/Esperanto/ESPDIC/espdi...

Amike,
Paul

EldanarLambetur:I would wonder if it could be either?

And if context doesn't make it clear, then would "vestaĵejo" and "vestadejo" be appropriate to differentiate?

Neither "vestaĵejo" nor "vestadejo" are in the PIV, the Gutenburg corpus, or any dictionary I have. (And I've never seen either word before: I would have remembered those). Google shows less than a dozen hits for either. While "vestaĵejo" does make sense to me, I'm not quite sure what a "vestadejo" would be.

A place for putting on clothes could be a "vestiĝejo" (stressing the act of dressing). A place for storing clothing could be a "vestoŝranko" or "vestotenejo" (more general), although I would prefer just plain "vestejo" in most cases.

Just my two cents : I'm a descriptive, not proscriptive kind of person

Amike,

Paul

Sad news for the people who would like to claim Esperanto as a language designed and intended only for the privileged few. Some mythical well educated elite.

Esperanto was designed to be a UNIVERSAL SECOND LANGUAGE, easily learned (compared to natural languages), and accessible to all, regardless of education, nationality, race, culture, creed, age, or any other artificial limit that people might wish to impose. It was designed and intended to be USABLE BY ALL PEOPLE.

As for the language Nazi's, who would like to tell everyone how they should use the language, every language has them, and in most languages the majority of speakers choose to ignore them.

No disrespect is intended to those who are genuinely trying to help others learn.

Forigite

Bemused:Sad news for the people who would like to claim Esperanto as a language designed and intended only for the privileged few. Some mythical well educated elite.

I don’t see any "privileged few" in this thread, I only see some advanced Esperantists discussing grammatical theories.